National teacher union heads make more than $360,000 a year, 3 times more than highest paid WA school administrator

Apparently it pays to be a union leader, even if it doesn't necessarily pay to be a union member.


Check out this Fox News article about national teacher union heads raking in the money while average teachers scratch out a living.  The article says the national average teacher salary is $44,000 a year, while union leaders earn shockingly high average salaries:

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten's pay jumped to $407,323 between 2010 and 2011, while her counterpart at the National Education Association, Dennis Van Roekel, got a raise to $362,644. Factor in stipends and other paid expenses and Weingarten took in $493,859 and Van Roekel $460,060 for 2011. 

To summarize: the lowest paid of two national teachers' union presidents makes about three times more than the highest paid WA public school administrator.  This, according to figures from the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In Washington State, the average teacher salary is $63,636 ($53,056 base salary, $10,580 additional salary), and $18,075 in benefits.

I'm still searching for information on what Washington Education Association union leadership gets paid.

You can check the figures for individual school districts at the Freedom Foundation website; or at the Bureau of Labor Statistics site.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/07/14/teacher-union-bigs-rake-in-dough-despite-budget-cuts-across-education-sector/?intcmp=trending#ixzz20cq3dosX

Petition to end union monopolies in govt.

From the Freedom Foundation March 5, 2011:

Last Saturday, 600 courageous taxpayers gathered in the snow and sub-freezing temperatures in Olympia to support Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s effort to cut spending and rein in the power of government unions. They were there to express hope that our state might follow a similar path—to allow a return to fiscal sanity. (See video of the government rally.)

Speaker after speaker described the union monopoly in Washington state, and how long-term reforms are impossible as long as government unions retain their monopoly over taxpayer dollars. As Freedom Foundation general counsel Mike Reitz said, “Collective bargaining is broken. And if we don’t fix it, it will break our state.”

A few hundred yards away some 2,000 union members and supporters gathered in violation of their rally permit in an attempt to shout down the Freedom Foundation event. They were from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the United Food and Commercial Workers, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the Washington Federation of State Employees, the Service Employees International Union and others. Together, they represented an imposing voice for maintaining the status quo.

The good news is that a few years ago it would have been only the union members on those steps. It was nearly unheard of for hundreds of taxpayers to gather in bad weather on less than a week’s notice to support something being done in a state two thousand miles away. It’s a measure of how far citizens have come in working together to effect change. The bad news is that it still looked a lot like David and Goliath. The government unions are still calling the shots.

That’s why we’re redoubling our efforts at the Freedom Foundation to address the problem of union monopolies and their stranglehold on the state’s finances. We’ve taken on Goliath before, and won a 9-0 victory at the U.S. Supreme Court to protect teachers whose rights were being violated by their union. In fact, several of the laws being proposed by governors like Scott Walker are based on legislation and court decisions we were responsible for.

Because of that experience, other organizations are looking to us for leadership in this effort. Our co-founders, Bob Williams and Lynn Harsh, have recently been on the ground in Wisconsin, Indiana and other states to share the lessons we learned in that ten-year litigation effort. And our staff has been called several times this week by allied organizations around the country who wanted guidance.

We’re glad to share our experiences, and we’re glad to see that other states are working on this issue. But we want change in Washington state too, and we need your help to get it. Those six hundred citizens who gathered in the snow last week need reinforcements. We must reach a much larger group of taxpayers with the truth about what really needs to happen before we can expect to change our state’s habit of overspending and over-regulating. That’s our commitment.

How can you help? Take a moment today to sign our petition, calling on our leaders to enact laws that will shift power away from union lobbyists and back to the people. Then forward it to five other people who understand the need for change.

Nearly one thousand citizens have signed it so far. In the next two weeks we want to send 10,000 signatures to Governor Walker to support him in his fight. We’ll also send them to your state legislators, to let them know how many of you want them to finally deal with this fundamental issue. Will you help us achieve that goal?

Click here to sign the petition, if you're interested.

Updated Info on State Employee Pay Cuts

Several people have written to me (publicly on the blog comment section and elsewhere) about my article calling for Washington State employees to face cuts in benefits and pay.  


The comments were from people whose spouses work for the State.  They were a little concerned that I would paint such an unsympathetic picture of the pay and benefits they receive.  Their families are facing tough economic times, too.


They're right to point out that the numbers I used in my post last week were averages, and that there are many employees who make a lot less than those figures represent.  Two of the comments were from home-schoolers, and I understand full well that finances are especially tight in families making the sacrifice of time and money to educate their children at home.  


That's the risk you take when you talk about average pay and benefits.  You risk under-emphasizing the outrageous examples at the top tiers.  You risk lumping in even those who are lower-paid (and who have lower benefit levels).  


In the future, I'll address some of the outrageous examples at the top.  But for now, please read this article from today's Washington State Wire.   It shows how non-union State workers would have faced higher cuts than union employees in a budget bill enacted this week by the State Legislature, but vetoed by the governor. 


I don't want to cause an uprising against public employees.  I do want everyone--even those employees-- to start dealing with the real issue facing Washington State:  Our government has made promises it can't afford to keep.  Cuts must be made, and everyone will take a hit in some form or another.  Shared cuts, meaning trimming benefits or wages for all state employees, are better than outright removal of jobs.  


Also on the subject of public-sector (government) unions, read this article by Bob Williams: "Why Private Sector Unions are Much Different than Government Unions."  It will explain why unions in government employment are not a good idea, and never will be.  The article is on the State Budget Solutions website, which I highly recommend to you.


Keep your comments coming.  I appreciate hearing your viewpoints.